easy hikes and city walks in Italy
We began our brief series of Roman walks where the city’s history began: on its legendary “seven hills”. Today, we will finish there as well, returning to the starting point of our journey but focusing on what has always been the odd one out of Rome’s seven hills The Aventino on the Eternal City’s southern…
Here is a quiz question for you. What is the only European country that has never possessed any kind of a railway network? Hands up everybody who said “the Vatican”. Wrong! (The correct answer is Andorra.) Don’t feel downhearted if you could not get it right, as the New York Times comforts those of its…
Our latest trip to Rome was the 4th time we visited the city. We went first in the mid-1980s when the world was a different place: the Iron Age of the modern world. Many things have changed since then, but the Eternal City is not one of them. Which, after all, is why it bears…
When you are in Rome for the first time, you should do what everybody else is doing: walk past the Roman ruins, visit the Vatican museums, jump into the Fontana Trevi. For the second time, rather than doing all of that again, you should try something else. Like jump into another fountain, so-to-speak. Extend your…
Who ever says that you cannot turn back time has never been to Biella. Or, more precisely, has not taken the funicular elevator from downtown Biella up to the oldest part of town, 50 metres up and 100 years back. Our Time Travel in Biella We travelled to Biella (and near-by Oropa) as a stopover…
The Santuario di Oropa aka Sacred Mountain of Oropa, in the northern Italian region of Piemonte is one of the largest sacred shrines in the Alps – and also one of the most storied. It all started with St Eusebius in the 4th century: on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, as the legend has…
If it is true that geography is destiny (as is often said), the slopes of the Val d’Aosta have always been fated to be stacked with castles. The surrounding mountains make it difficult for a central authority to gain full control, while the valley’s remoteness from the power centres of its neighbouring countries (historically France…
The Alps are surrounded by large and fascinating cities (such as Turin, Salzburg, Munich) but have themselves little interesting architecture or history to offer. Human settlements in Europe’s highest mountain range have always tended to be small, and most were farming villages until recently – when they became skiing resorts. Either way, there is usually…
The Alps are a two-faced host. Up to an altitude of 1500 or 2000 metres, they welcome their visitors – at least for parts of the year – with a sunny smile and a warm embrace of lush fauna and colour. The barren wastelands and hostile peaks somewhere on the distant horizon do not impend…
Alpine walks have the reputation of being difficult, generally for good reasons. That does not mean that you are doomed to stick to the lowlands unless you are a dab hand at ropes and bottled oxygen. What it does mean, however, is that you must follow certain rules when looking for easy hikes 2000 metres…